When considering the purchase of a sunroom, there are many decisions to make. What the sunroom’s structure is made from is one of the most important from a practical as well as an aesthetic perspective.

Extruded vinyl or aluminum are commonly used to build the frames for sunrooms. Both materials are very resistant to rot and require little maintenance but have the look and feel of a poor quality product. Furthermore, sunroom built from vinyl or aluminum are “stick” built on-site with very little control over quality due to the variability of the skills between one technician and another.

Laminated wood sunrooms offer several advantages. There is little doubt that wood looks “warmer and richer” than either of it’s competitors. In fact, wood is literally warmer because it is a much better thermal insulator than either aluminum or vinyl. The color and grain patterns in wood are beautiful. Laminating wood to form the beams takes advantage of the beauty of the wood and enhances its structural qualities. Sawn timber beams are weakened by knots and other natural variations in the wood. When wood is cut into thin laminations and then glued together to make up a full thickness beam, the knots and other “defects” are limited to only the thickness of each lamination. Since the natural flaws don’t line up from layer to layer, the effective strength of the beam is not impacted.

To protect the beautiful wood from the elements, the exterior surfaces of laminated wood sunrooms are clad in aluminum extrusions. This technique offers all of the advantages of wood and aluminum.

Since wood is an easily machined material, it makes customizing the sunroom easy. Manufacturers of aluminum and vinyl sunrooms will not customize their rooms to fit special customer requirements. Building sunrooms from laminated wood makes customization a natural benefit.